Warning, what is described in this technique is NOT, IN ANY WAY, crossing one’s eyes or related to crossing one’s eyes. It is quite the opposite!

Introduction

There is a physical reality of our bodies that can, should, and does produce circumstances that set up and allow a phenomenon to happen,in which we actually physically see a third eye. An awareness of this physical reality of how our bodies are constructed and a becoming conscious of and using the phenomena arising from it is one of the most important first steps in the preparation for and beginning of becoming conscious. It is also a necessary step in any self-development, mystical or otherwise, including Zen Buddhism, Tao, The Path of Liberation, Yoga, Sufism, etc., all of which are essentially the same thing, since they all deal with the same things, namely the body and mind and their interaction. Anyone supposedly teaching any such disciplines who does not teach these realities of how we see and of the Third Eye phenomenon as explained here, is not really teaching those disciplines, but only bits and pieces of them learned without actually ever doing the real disciplines.

The Third Eye

The “third eye” is usually understood as a form of reference to some mental inner ability or deeper form of consciousness or conscious understanding. It most definitely is not. It is a reference to something that is, in its first stages, purely a physical state of the eyes and the muscles around the eyes that control the angle of those eyes to each other. It is a reference to a simple, purely physical, quite medically and scientifically real, phenomenon that occurs because we all happen to have two eyes, one on each side of our head, and we are, therefore, always, in one way or another, seeing double. Actually, literally and physically seeing double. Or are we always? And if not, why not?

This fact that we are always seeing double can easily be noticed by holding a finger up at arm’s length in front of you. If you see the finger single, you will be seeing almost everything else double. In other words, if you see the finger single, all the rest of the room will be double. And if, while still holding the finger in front of you in the same way, you concentrate your gaze in normal fashion on something substantially farther behind the finger, the finger and everything else will then be double, except for the thing you are concentrating on behind the finger, which will be single.

The above is a simple reality of physics and of our bodies, and of how our eyes are placed on our bodies. When you see one distance single, every other distance in front of and in back of that distance has to be seen double!

Not being consciously aware of this phenomenon is simply not being conscious, plain and simple. Because, for most people, that is the reality of how they see. Therefore, any discipline aimed at developing consciousness has to start with developing a conscious awareness of this phenomenon and of exactly what one is seeing and how one is seeing it, which is something most people do not notice at all. And, in fact, one of the crucial beginning stages of The Path of Liberation arises out of the disciplines associated with this physical phenomenon of human sight.

In the beginning of the Path, and for the bulk of the progress of the Path, until they are “liberated”, the muscles around the eyes are linked to and control most key functions of the body. Especially those of the external movement and alignment (posture) of the body, as well as most habits entailing combinations of muscular movements and mental and sensory stimulation. In short, the muscles around the eyes are the first superior chakras of the body and remain so for quite some time.

The first aim of work on the Path is to be able to relax all muscular tensions, except those absolutely necessary to keep the body in whatever position it needs to be in at the time. Any other tensions keep the body from becoming still, calm, etc. Since the muscles around the eyes are paramount to the workings of the whole body, a person will never be able to relax completely until those muscles around the eyes are completely relaxed. And, by extension, the Path and any pursuit of the highest possible conscious experience will be impossible.

What the above means is that, unless the muscles around the eyes are evenly relaxed, the Path is not possible. When the eyes are toed in, towards each other in order to see anything single (which they are as good as always), some of the muscles are tensed in order to pull the eyes towards each other. Those tensions must be relaxed. And relaxing those muscles is not something anyone can do intentionally. It is something—a phenomenon—that one can only allow to happen under ideal circumstances…..a phenomenon that demands the ability to relax pretty much all muscles of the body, except the very least necessary for sitting, in which position this discipline should be learned. And here, it is the lotus position, which, when correctly done, can achieve the least possible tensions, while keeping the body erect, and can also achieve the least possible distracting stimuli by keeping the hands, arms, and feet in positions wherein they will be least stimulated by contact with anything.

On The modern Path, sitting lotus and working on the Path can readily be done in front of a mirror. In the past, mirrors were either non-existent or hard to find. That is now no longer the case. Therefore, the third eye phenomenon can be learned and mastered much more quickly than in the past.

The prerequisite is the ability to relax most of the tensions of the body, as brought back from China by Dr. Johannes Schulz and taught as the Autogenic Training. Learning and mastering the order through which the muscular tensions of the body can most effectively be turned off is a necessity for the beginning of Path. This order of turning off muscular tensions was thoroughly scientifically researched in Germany and Switzerland in the last century and has been used effectively in the great medical and psychiatric clinics of those countries.

When one has learned the order for turning off muscular tensions of the body and gained the knack of doing it at will, one can then sit very close in front of a mirror in full meditation and relax the muscles of the eyes, at which time the eyes will then each look straight ahead, instead of toeing in towards each other. One will then see two separate images of one’s face in the mirror. The two images will be displaced horizontally. And because the eyes will now be looking straight ahead and not angled/toed in, the two images will be displaced by exactly the distance between one’s eyes.

At this point, it is essential to understand that part of the exercise is to see objectively, meaning one should see everything as pure form (purely as form and nothing more), without any connotation whatsoever. One begins trying to see everything objectively by simply looking at the form that the two displaced images combine to make….looking without connotation, without giving it meaning, without reacting to it, not as beautiful, or as surprising, or as ugly or as whatever. Simply as being there. The two displaced images of your face in the mirror combine to form one new conglomerate image, so to speak, and you are to look at that, plain and simply. Just look at it and see exactly what it looks like.

The law of the Visions of God is that God does not give the visions to you until you can see that which is actually there in reality. And, in this case, it is two displaced images combining to form a new image. That new image is what one should see. One should not attempt to make out the two different images that make up the conglomerate image.

Onwards with the technique:

When the muscles around the eyes relax so that the eyes look straightforward and their two images separate from each other, one sees four eyes. Two of the eyes come towards each other and two eyes move away from each other. One is left with a relatively narrow part of the image of each head overlapping. Within that overlapping portion of each image are the two eyes that moved towards each other.

The head should be held so that it is exactly vertical, unless the eyes are not at the same height in the head. In that case, the head should be tilted slightly so that a line through the pupils of the eyes will be exactly horizontal. If that is the case, and one remains very still and calm, eyes wide open, while quieting the breath, continuing to relax the facial muscles while looking neutrally-centered into the mirror, the two eyes that came towards and covered each other will eventually form one single eye. That phenomenon, (and if done right, it definitely is a phenomenon, not something the candidate or anyone else can “DO”) is the third eye.

When the third eye forms, the mirror discipline is usually over at that time, if this is the first time one experiences the phenomenon.

From then on, for quite some time, all open-eye meditations should be done in the mirror, patiently repeating all stages until one again reaches the third eye. Whenever one again reaches the third eye, one should look directly into it. That is the beginning of a long stage of the Path, during which the third eye phenomena open up a world of further images and experiences, all following formal rules of God, in how and why He shows them.

That, those stages and rules, will be written elsewhere.

For the deserving, after a while, achieving the third eye becomes a “knack” and one can achieve it instantaneously, any time.

The third eye is a real phenomenon that everyone on the Path experiences all the time, and which many others often experience by accident, without understanding it. The third eye is not something unreal used as a designation for some kind of mental realizations or insights. The Third Eye may well sometimes accompany insights, but it is not, itself, any kind of insights or sign of any insights.